So my old GEM Pro2 RealPiano finally got a brain aneurism and sits open, hoping for possibly the last dsp board in the world. Maybe I'll get one. I'm so bummed. On the other hand, it's been to so many shows and been around the block so many times over the last 15 years or so (god, I love it), maybe this is the sign I need to put it in the studio and do something else for live play. Which is what I did.

Last summer, I sold some other gear and bought a Yamaha P90, basically to use as a controller in the studio. I got it from someone's living room along with a really nice fancy black padded bench for $450. I found out that the action in this one is the same as Yamaha uses for the most expensive digital pianos, and it sure feels like it. Like butta. The internal sounds are ok in a pinch, but I needed something more juicy. The P90 is 4" high and 11" deep and weighs 15 or 20 pounds lighter than the Pro2. That thing was getting annoyingly difficult to schlepp around. I also got a GEM RPX piano module last spring (more buy/sell) and decided to make that work with the P90 for pianos. Last, I have an old Invisible keyboard stand. I really love it and have had it longer than I can remember. So I welded a little support for the top keyboard (Nord Electro 61) and could now stack the two very compactly. Now comes the good part:

I normally carry three pedals for the keys: piano sustain, organ "expression" (volume control) and Leslie fast/slow on my left. And then there's all the wires in the wire box along with power cords and wallwarts. These are normally all wrapped and put into the wire box. At the gig, they all come out and make my brain hurt because they're all loose by this time and there are more than I need (for backup) and it's awful awful awful. Plus they all have to be positioned right. On a wood floor they all have to be taped down and they still move on me, making me miss notes and further making my brain go into overload.

So I went to the Home Despot and bought a rubber/carpet doormat that was the right size, double-siloconed all the pedals and power strip to it just where I need them, let it set a spell (several days) and then wired it all up to the two keyboards, the piano module, the microphone (AUdix OM5) and the T1, which sits on top of the piano module. A judicious application of heavy-duty velcro keeps everything in place just as nice as you please. So now I have a mat with wires, pedals and power strip that rolls up as a unit and packs in an old proto power stand bag. I swear this will last forever. Here's how the rig looks in the bag:

Here is how it looks rolled up, out of the bag. I drilled holes in the rug/rubber on either side of the wires on the topside and snaked tie-wraps thru to hold the various pedal wires down. If I ever needed to remove the pedals, they will remove pretty easily by taking a knife and cutting the RTV bond. I don't think I'll ever have to do this. It feels solid and permanent.

Here it is unrolled with all the wy-izz

Here's a back view with the stand in place, everything stacked and all the connections in place. Note the "snake" using some of that flexy plastic covering from my Cobra kit car.

Here's the command-post view, ready to rock. I used a short xlr cable for the mic, rather than have this long thing snaking around the mic stand. This way, it packs conveniently in the wire bundle for travel.

Very cool set up and smart (especially for a keyboard player)

"...especially for a keyboard player"? Hey, now. Do I detect some kind of instrument-specific cultural commentary here? Is this the beginnings of a kind-of debate and open forum about the relative mind-set and personal habits of those playing various kinds of musical instruments?

And so, then; what kind of player would Kramster be?

Oh Clifford,

I thought only Guitarists went through these kinds of gyrations.

So just for fun I did a search for "invisible keyboard stand" (because I recognized yours - I have one too), and whoa nelly, I came across some doozy discussions. Keyboard players and stands - they can talk about them for at least as long as Guitarists talk about pedals.

Who'd have thought.

If you must know ... Mostly keys, then some acoustic guitar and occasional WX5 (as I took sax lessons and have to justify them) and some percussion (Handsonic) and harmonica..... and even jammed with a girl named Billie (not with her lab coat though).

Kram

Oh myee goh iddd. Dr. Wokka and the MD's. The identity of that masked man is now again revealed.

With my comments, I was secretly hoping to trigger an apocolypse of drummer/singer/etc jokes. There's probably enough of that anyway.

Re: Guitar players - That's what I feel like right now as I am starting to play with my new rig. My old Pro2 piano was so righteous, and I'm convinced it was only that way for me. Everyone else said "it's a grand piano; whatever". I remember working with Steve Miller on guitar tone. He had this one amp he was playing thru (he has the national amp collection at his house) and his head was exploding over how awesome it sounded and he said "what do you think; isn't that fantastic?" and I said "sounds like electric guitar to me". It was basically "whatever". He was dumbfounded over the comment, pretty annoyed too that such a guy who's supposed to know about tone can't hear the magical swoosh of electrons racing across a vacuum and all that. But it's the truth. The player experience is a unique one and at this point in my life I can't really expect anyone but the player to understand it. So when I do tonematch work, the "what do you hear?" I ask of the player is my jumping-off spot. I have to trust their experience completely, once a certain level of tone is established. Everyone's experience of the real world is unique.

And so it is with my new rig. I've played with and known an army of guitar players over my musical life and they all go thru hell to get even somewhere near the tone they want. I'll have to fault the reality that guitars, amps, pickups and all the rest are mostly developed independently. And I'll have to say that tonematch is a really good idea because it is a component of a completely enclosed system of tone development and delivery, the latter being the most important part of it all (everyone; player, mates and audience hears pretty much the same thing). And so, with the system we've invented (the whole sum of all the parts), the player gets way closer first time out of the gate. But it's that last little delta that is now driving me crazy, just like a guitar player. Yeah the stand and the other stuff are important, but the rug with all the pedals and the wiring harness has really wrapped all that part of it up for me. It sets up faster than Tom Yates' guitar rig and fits like a glove when I play. But the way the tone is connected to the keys is such a brain-melt. We did a show on Saturday and played 11 songs off the first CD and 12 songs off the new one we're almost finished recording. We played great, really. But I'm still not really comfortable with what I heard as it relates to what I feel in my fingers. Everyone else thought it was fantastic. Sound familiar, ST? I guess it has something to do with the MIDI velocity curve coming out of the Yamaha and what the RPX wants to see. Who knows? The Nord continues to satisfy, but the piano is still in the DMZ.

I brought my RPX to the L1 conference in North Carolina, just got it. Dan Cornett had one too. He was flipped out over it and I was having a melt-down over how much I hated it. It's strat/tele/LesPaul all over again. Since then I have been tweaking the RPX with a computer (lots to tweak in there) and am getting closer with it. But, yeah, I guess I've turned into a guitar player that plays a digital piano.

quote:

Originally posted by Col. Cliff-at-Bose:
...I remember working with Steve Miller on guitar tone. He had this one amp he was playing thru (he has the national amp collection at his house) and his head was exploding over how awesome it sounded and he said "what do you think; isn't that fantastic?" and I said "sounds like electric guitar to me". It was basically "whatever". He was dumbfounded over the comment, pretty annoyed too that such a guy who's supposed to know about tone can't hear the magical swoosh of electrons racing across a vacuum and all that. But it's the truth. The player experience is a unique one and at this point in my life I can't really expect anyone but the player to understand it...

Hi Cliff,
I think it might be a total body experience that only the player (an experienced one) experiences. In the case of an electric guitar, while fretting a string the guitarist plucks it. This vibration makes its way to the amp and then immediately into the air, and back to the player via their ears. This completed circuit has a visceralness that can only be experienced by the player. The finger vibration and the ear vibration, not to mention the guitar against the torso vibration, all culminate in a grand experience...if the "magical swoosh of electrons racing across a vacuum and all that" are done in the right combination for that player. It is like a very complex and sensitive transducer/retransducer circuit.

Perhaps this is the same for keyboards. I cannot tell because I am not sufficiently experienced with keys to know the difference.

...Just my thoughts fist thing this morning mid-first-cup of coffee.

That's right, Mark. It is sensitive and complex. You think, do something with your hands (and, in my case, both feet) and you get something in the air around you. If it's what you think you want, you're a happy camper. It's the same for singers too, once you accept that you're not just a singer but rather a player of an electric instrument called "amplified voice".

Tis amazing to me how I can tweak "my sound" and really like it for a while and then change a few things "for the better " and some one will say it sounds better the way I used to have it... and then I believe them as I want the audience to like it too. Or when I get some one else to play through my set up and am blown away how good it sounds. Happened the other day with the GEM pRP7 piano into the Bose...just loved the rich full sound on that ole 15-20 yr old technology of that board.
And when someone said that when they play a P120 with internal speakers on, you can feel the vibrations in your fingers as you play and it sounds/feels more real... something I never noticed and now appreciate (might have been the Col Cliffy who wrote that on a post here). And making it easier and easier to set it all up is always good.
Years ago I had just upgraded my stereo with a Yamaha Receiver and some Ohm Walsh 2s.... all excited about how good it sounded... when my girl friend came over to listen... she said it sounded good like here car radio (yes a basic Chevy Delco)...Ouch.... but I loved it anyway. I guess as long as somebody likes it.
Now trying to get that perfect amplified acoustic guitar sound is wearing on me.

News flash!

It appeared to me that the RPX module really sounded different when I used the P90. Impossible I thought (MIDI is MIDI, right?) but there it was; dullsville.

I own a bunch of MIDI Solutions products, very useful little boxes that are sprinkled around my studio for various tasks. I was thinking that my piano thing had some thing to do with the MIDI signal and it sort of made me remember seeing a MS "velocity converter" or something like that. So I looked it up today and there it was, with a whole bunch of different velocity curves. So I called them up and got a Real Human Being on the phone, actually the guy who owns the company and designs all the gear. He told me the P90 only puts out a MIDI velocity level of 112 max. Somehow, Yamaha limits it, when it should be doing 127 max. What? He also told me he has sold a lot of these specifically for the P90. Could this be my problem? Well, I just might guess so. Duh-uhh. How can this happen? Yamaha mentions nothing of this to me, their customer, in their database on how to use this instrument properly.

Anyway, stay tuned. I'm getting a converter and will report back on this in probably a few weeks, once it's in the rig and all.

I still dig the P90 as far as its size, butta-feel and weight. This little item should do the trick is what I'm thinking.

News at 11.

quote:

He was flipped out over it and I was having a melt-down over how much I hated it

From what I recall (it had been a few years since I'd last played a PRO2 when I got the RP/X), Cliff was not liking the bit longer delay/response time/touch on-set of the RP/X vs. Pro2.

As one who went from pure acoustic pianos to full-fledged pipe organs during my high-school days (and the eons since), I've never been too much bothered by a bit of delay between the finger action and the sound impinging on the eardrum. You've never really experienced "touch delay" until you play an organ console at the front of a large, long church, with the pipes at the back, and the air-supply to the pipes controlled by electro-mechanical solenoids. You have to learn to trust where your fingers (and feet) are going! ... you also have to learn to 'anticipate' the tempo if the folks you're playing with (other instrumentalists and singers) are near to the console!!

(The effect of watching an organist play in such a room is rather like a movie where the sound-track is out-of-sync with the video!)

Greetings Dan (Happy New Year)

I really can't say what it was but I don't think it's delay. I think it's just what you are wired to like and in this case how you hear piano. I bought the RPX based on what I heard on cans at the NAMM show. When I bought my Pro2, I bonded instantly using the same auditioning method. And of course your experience compound things or, in my case, they reinforce certain things, like your basic wiring. For some reason, when I played it in NC (the first time over the L1 since I got the little darling) I was really disappointed. I think I ended up using the internal sounds of the keyboard we were using.

I just know that a good digital piano over the L1 is like grabbing a lump of good warm clay and feeling it squeeze through your fingers as you squeeze it. And the more you squeeze, the better it gets. But, of course, everyone feels it different.

I really think the velocity limit has a lot to do with it, although I bet the keyboard you had out there in NC was deliving a solid 127 out of the MIDI jack.

In a way, I love the mystery of all this, but it makes me crazy too. "There must be a logical answer for this" are my own words. Maybe not too. Stay tuned.

quote:

Originally posted by Col. Cliff-at-Bose:
...although I bet the keyboard you had out there in NC was deliving a solid 127 ... I think I ended up using the internal sounds of the keyboard ...

Just for the record, that was actually Roy & Martha's keyboard.

You had your old GEM module which you ended up using; there where 3 module boxes we had sitting there (2 RP/X and your old RealPiano) that I daisy-chained together -- just depended on which of the 4 generated outputs was actually turned up and connected to the T1.

re: Touch. I know that the Roland RD700 I use most times sounds rather different based on the 3 built-in "touch sensitivity" curves (light, med., hard) ... I like the medium for most things, but occasionally switch to the light touch for use on the "scat / doowop" voices, because that "organic feel" you talk about seems to make it easier for me to control the "doo" and "wap" transitions on the "light" key touch, where as I like "medium" key touch for the RP/X piano. -- But that's all from the Roland RD700 as the MIDI controller.

I ordered a MIDI Solutions velocity converter. It looks like a nice little swiss army knife thingy, just a black box with MIDI in and out. It has a special set of curves for MIDI velocity=112 (P90). I should have it next week and will report then. I think the soft and hard settings are the different key/midi curves and the "normal" is the linear one.

I forgot about the old GEM module. I still have it but the display has gone blank. How convenient. There's no way to even tell remotely what settings are on. But if I switch to "performance", it's obvious from listening. I think the RPX has much more potential, plus you can see what's going on, kind of. With the patch editor, however, it's all there. It really took me a while to figure this out, but I now use it regularly.

More next week, good to hear from you DAn.

You know reading this reminds me I have Roland Mks-20 module lying around somewhere.

So I bought a MIDI Solutions "Velocity Converter" after determining that my Yamaha P90 would supply power to it. I loaded up curve #33 by playing a MIDI sequence into it via the MS Media Player and tried it out. The manufacturer has a real simple application you can download for programming the VC as well as all their other stuff. (I also own their MIDI footswitch controller and matching MIDI relay for switching Leslie motors- via a power relay - in the studio.) I must say, I got great realtime-conversation support from the device's inventor, John Fast in Vancouver BC. It was as good as calling us about the L1.

So I plugged it in and played it. Simply put: New Instrument. Curve33 does a linear scaling of the MIDI signal, which is for some unknown reason limited to a maximum of 112. I'm told the DX7 does this too. Why? Yamaha doesn't want you to play too loud? The scaler gives me a full 127 when I put the hammer down. "This one goes to ee-leven". The whole thing even feels different, probably because of what's now coming back into the air from the L1.

To refresh this post, I'm using the P90 to drive a General Music RPX piano module. With the velocity scaled right, the whole thing jumps like it should, tho it sounds a little midrangey. So, in a little test project with one of the dsp guys here, I did a ToneMatch for it. It's a modified smiley with both hf and lf rolloff. This makes it less midrangey, doesn't have all that bombastic LF that would never work with the band and gets rid of some clicky stuff on top. I should be good with this. Maybe I can post it for any RPX users. It's not a bad curve for any digital piano player to try out.

I'll report further when we do our next show. Not this month, finishing up album #2.